Children's Education in Practice: Human, Non-human Worlds and Social Transformation of a Pastoralist Community in Tibet 17 views

This dissertation is about the situated practice of children’s education in the home and community settings of a Tibetan pastoralist (Drokpa) community in an eastern Tibetan region. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted using interviews and participant observation of pastoralist parents and children. It employed social practice theory to investigate learning in practice in everyday life with human and non-human worlds. Relatedly, “education of attention” is used to examine the process of learning in the doing with the environment. It also developed the Buddhist concept of dendrel (Dependent Arising) as research praxis and used Indigenous Knowledge Systems as research paradigms. The pastoralist practice of parenting and childrearing is embedded in a dense web of social relations from extended family members to the larger community members, which forms an affective bonding between children and their care providers that is termed “deep connections.” This deep connection is an important component of children’s being and their learning where children are socialized into various qualities in everyday practice, such as parental gratitude and reciprocity to the larger community. Tibetan pastoralist lifeways create open access opportunities for children to participate in adults’ everyday life and work. By documenting a Tibetan parenting practice called “putting to work,” (Tib. ལས་ཀར་མངགས།) in which parents enlist their children in household-based, everyday tasks, this dissertation shows how children directly engage with multifaceted relations of human and non-human worlds. This kind of enskilment through work is situated and experiential learning that is called “deep learning,” which is embedded in a community-based education practice centered on character building (i.e. mizhi Tib. མི་གཞི།) and relationship building (i.e. drinchen Tib. དྲིན་ཅན།). The larger rapid social and economic transformations in the yak herding community is altering pastoralists’ relationship with animals and land, which in turn changes children’s learning practices as a process of deskilling. The study reveals that pastoralist parents primarily view the purpose of their children’s schooling as the narrower goal of Chinese literacy acquisition and assert the purpose of education as community building. Based on this kind of children’s education enmeshed in multiple and dynamic relations of human and non-human worlds in their daily life, it developed a concept of “education in practice.” It proposed that “education in practice” might be a useful alternative theoretical perspective to understand modes of education beyond formal settings.

PHD (Doctor of Philosophy)

Tibetan Education; education in practice; Tibetan parenting; anthropology of education; situated learning; Drokpa; Tibetan pastoralist; Indigenous education; Tibetan parenting; ethnography of education; enskilment; deskilling; dendrel; drinchen; children’s learning; informal education; learning in practice; community of practice; social practice theory; children’s work; childhood studies

English

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2026-04-29